Related Networks

In 1980-81, two other networking projects, BITNET and CSNET, were initiated. BITNET adopted the IBM RSCS protocol suite and featured direct leased line connections between participating sites. Most of the original BITNET connections linked IBM mainframes in university data centers. This rapidly changed as protocol implementations became available for other machines. From the beginning, BITNET has been multi-disciplinary in nature with users in all academic areas. It has also provided a number of unique services to its users (e.g., LISTSERV). Today, BITNET and its parallel networks in other parts of the world (e.g., EARN in Europe) have several thousand participating sites. In recent years, BITNET has established a backbone which uses the TCP/IP protocols with RSCS-based applications running above TCP.

CSNET was initially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide networking for university, industry and government computer science research groups. CSNET used the Phonenet MMDF protocol for telephone-based electronic mail relaying and, in addition, pioneered the first use of TCP/IP over X.25 using commercial public data networks. The CSNET name server provided an early example of a white pages directory service and this software is still in use at numerous sites. At its peak, CSNET had approximately 200 participating sites and international connections to approximately fifteen countries.

In 1987, BITNET and CSNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN). In the Fall of 1991, CSNET service was discontinued having fulfilled its important early role in the provision of academic networking service. A key feature of CREN is that its operational costs are fully met through dues paid by its member organizations.

The Development of the Computer

• First Generation Computers

• Second Generation Computers

• Third Generation Computers

• Fourth Generation Computers

First Generation Computers

As time progressed, people found they were using adding machines and slide rules to perform more and more extremely tedious calculations. Aiken, developed the Mark I in 1944 to ease this calculating burden. However, rather than follow the mechanical approach of the Mark I, many researchers set to work to develop electronic computers.

Prior to World War II, John V. Atansoff, a professor of physics, and Clifford E. Berry, a graduate student at Iowa State College, began building an electronic computer. Unfortunately, because of the war, they were never able to complete it. In 1939, Atansoff finished the construction of a small prototype computer he built to test his ideas. Atansoff then used this model to begin work on his Atansoff-Berry Computer (ABC), but in 1942 was forced to stop due to the war. The unfinished computer used 300 vacuum tubes to perform calculations, capacitors to store binary data, and punched cards to communicate input/output. One important aspect of this computer was that unlike the old mechanical adding machines which used direct counting, the ABC utilized logical operations to perform addition and subtraction. The spokes on the mechanical adding machines "counted" the solution to their calculation by turning the same number of times as the values of the addends. The ABC, however, used the logical operators "

A binary number is a number written in the base two. This means that instead of using the digits zero through nine, like in base ten, only the digits zero and one are used. Each place is then equivalent to a power of two, so you have the one's place, two's place, four's place, etc. For example the number five in binary would be 101. To understand the usage of performing logical operations on binary numbers think of zero as representing "false" and one as representing "true." True "and" true produces true as an answer, while true "and" false, or false "and" false result in false. For "or," false "or" false is false, and any other combination is true.

During World War II, researchers made more advances to ease the burden of performing calculations. The Defense Department needed an easier way to compute its firing and ballistic tables.² So, J. Presper Eckert and William Mauchley at the Moore School for Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania found a solution for the Defense Department's dilemma. In 1946, they developed the ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator.³ It filled a thirty by fifty-foot room and weighed thirty tons.⁴ The computer had 18,000 vacuum tubes which were used to perform calculations at a rate of 5,000 additions per second.⁵ This is much faster than any human could perform, but a great deal slower than the computers of today. Operators used plug boards and wires to program the desired operations and entered the numbers used in the calculations by turning a series of dials until they corresponded to the correct digits.

In the next few years, a number of other "first generation" computers were built. All of these early computers used vacuum tubes to perform their calculations. One development among these first computers was the use of an internally stored program. In 1945, John von Neumann wrote a paper describing how a binary program could be electronically stored in a computer. This program would enable the computer to alter the operations to be performed depending upon the results of previous steps. For example, the computer could be programmed so that whenever it calculated a number less than ten, it should add five. This concept greatly increased the flexibility of computers. In 1947, the EDVAC, Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, was built by Eckert and Mauchley at the University of Pennsylvania. The EDVAC utilized the idea of an electronically-stored program.⁶

In 1951, Eckert and Mauchley built the UNIVAC for use at the Census Bureau.⁷ The UNIVAC used magnetic tape to store input/output rather than the punch tape which had been used in the earlier machines. It was the first computer commercially produced for businesses.⁸ A total of forty-six UNIVAC computers were sold.⁹

Grandpa Guinee: The early computer had many bugs in it and was very frequently inoperative because of the failure of particular electronic component. So that when they were first put out on the market people said "Well, this will never work." But, they have overcome all of their bad publicity and now are accepted as a necessity in business.

In 1953, IBM produced its 701 computer, and then two years later its 752 computer. IBM continued to develop and expand its computer line and within the next decade, IBM managed to corner over seventy percent of the industrial computer market.¹⁰

Uncle Murph: The first computers that we used used a device called an electronic drum. It did not have any disk or tape and it was fed by cards in and cards out and had no printer. The drum had 2000 words of fixed storage and had to contain both the instructions and the storage both on a drum which cycled around just like a garbage can going this way. You had certain fixed read areas and certain fixed punch areas and certain fixed print areas. So, after you allocate the read area, the punch area, and the print area, the rest was for the program and then you had a little bit of data. But, basically the medium to input the computer was a punched card, so you fed cards in, but you could do repetitive programming against the data that was in the cards and produce a punched result. That didn't last very long. It was too slow, too unworkable, too expensive, too hot. Hot enough to keep my coffee warm, by the way, because there were vacuum tubes. The vacuum tubes were like that high and they were in series